I just got a Remington 870 very recently. Currently, all of the shells for it are birdshot. I have been poking around on the internet for what would be the best home defense shotgun load, but I hear lots of conflicting information. (I hear stuff like "buckshot will go through drywall, use birdshot" and "don't use buckshot, use birdshot", stuff like that.)

I'm pretty confused about what type of shotgun load to buy, should I stick with the birdshot? Or get double 00 buckshot.

Note: The only alternative I got is bolt-action rifles where the bullet will go through the home invader and kill my 'cross the street' neighbor's cows.

Birdshot for birds

Buck is effective, but it over penetrates compared to 5.56


Use buck, and build an ar

Read this.  I trust Chuck

http://www.chuckhawks.com/home_defense_shotgun_ammo.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZf_x8Esms

 

Federal Le 12300 low recoil 00 buck is what I keep my hd 870 stoked with.



Good penetration, the low recoil comes into advantage to being back on target quicker for the second shot.

I also like #1 buck, but it can be a pain in the ass to find.

#1 buckshot when I can get my hands on it. 00 when it is not available.

Buck.  

I can never find 1 so I just get OO

Low recoil is good.  Look for federal with the flitecontrol was. Or Hornady with their version.

If given the choice between lowrecoil and flitecontrol.  Get flitecontrol.

Learn how to load. One round out. One round in.

Velcro and a shotshell card.

Get slugs too, just because

I have 8 rounds of hevishot #4 buckshot. I would love to change that to 8 rds of federal flite control #1 buckshot. The closest thing I can find is a hornady #1 buck with their take on the flite control wad

I alternate 00 with #4.  I shot an old hot water heater from 20 yards with #4 once.  Looked like someone emptied a 30 round mag of .223 into it.

It's also worked well for me with deer.

You really need to try several different size shot, by several makers, and go with what the gun patterns best. That said the flute control wads help a lot.

I had thought this discussion was settled long ago but assuming this is not a troll thread;

Back in the 80s I kept a pump shotgun as my home defense weapon. I was poor and lived in a bad area and it was only one of two guns I owned (the second being a .22 bolt-action rifle). Flipping through the pages of one of the many gun periodicals (for you young folks it was like a one-way Internet but made out of trees) I ran across an article written by an "expert" who praised birdshot as a defensive round. "It was cheaper than Buckshot, it was lower recoil than Buckshot, had less chance of penetrating walls with a miss and at across the room distances, it would hit more as a slug than a shot pattern." The article then went on to presume that 1oz of birdshot hitting a target before the pattern began to develop should have the same effect as a solid slug of the same velocity at that range (1oz of lead traveling @1200fps is equal to 1oz of lead traveling @ 1200fps, right???). The article made sense to me at the time and it was written by an "expert" so, for a few years my trusty Winchester 1300 sat loaded by my bedside with 1-1/8 oz. #8 Heavy Field load. Well, after a while I started hearing challenges to the authors assumptions and decided to see for myself. I had an opportunity to shoot a hog carcass that had put put down but could not be processed due to disease. I fired a shot from ~15feet and initially had been impressed. However, upon closer examination, I found that the wound was really superficial. It looked ugly from the surface but probing the point of impact with gloved fingers, I found that none of the birdshot had penetrated more than about 3". It was messy looking and I am sure nobody would want to get shot by anything but I had my doubts that it would stop a violent attack.

The reality is, Birdshot is for the birds. Buckshot or Slugs are what you want to load a shotgun with if you ever need to shoot 100#+ mammals, four-legged or two legged.

Why on earth would anyone think that something designed to kill a bird, would be the correct choice against a person???  

#1 buck is what you seek.  If you are worried about penetration through walls, you are out of luck.  Anything that will penetrate a human is also going to penetrate a sheet of drywall.  #4 buck is the smallest that I would consider for HD.

    Thanks Makarov for the first hand story of your testing of a birdshot load.  I keep my shotgun loaded with 00 buck as #1 buck is too much of a pain in the ass to find to worry about.

#1 buckshot

00 buckshot

Flight control if using buckshot

Slugs

so im guessing you dont give a shit about penetrating walls? or maybe you aren't using a shotgun.

OP if the only thing you are worried about is possibly smoking one of your neighbors cows due to over penetration then i would get some buck. i personally live in a pretty small neighborhood where houses are small and the walls are thin. i have birdshot in my 870, but like you I'm not sure if this is the best option. thats why i have an AR.

You live in Texas, bikers wear leather vests, even #4 Buck is not great with leather.  My opinion based on my own tests, #4 buck shreds more then it penetrates.

Set your gun up to work properly.  Then set your mind up to use it properly.  Determine safe shooting lanes, try to play defense in those areas.  You can shoot at a downward angle and blow up hips, pelvic bones, lower spine and intestines.  Frankly it's a great place to pace shots.  If the SHTF you are going to wish you had a light on your gun and not birdshot in it.

As a kid I saw two guys killed by buck.  I also met a guy who loved my Grandfather because he had taken such good care of him and his family while he recovered from being shot.  It was during a robbery, he was shot at close range with birdshot.  I have never met survivors of buck or slugs.  Sure they are out there somewhere, just not in my circles.

when I used a shot gun for home defense I used #3 steel shot. Didn't over penetrated. And you can typically find it for any goose hunting store

Never mind, didn't see the aparent sarcasm in this post. But just incase any rookies or novices are browsing do not heed this advice



(And WTH is a goose hunting store)

I'm sorry what we're you asking, I stopped listening after buck.

buck or slugs.  
Know what's beyond your target.  

Go to Box-O-Truth read up.  Even birdshot will penetrate drywall at room size distances.

I need to start posting a picture of my head.

I have a pea sized lump by my right temple towards my eye.

Its bird shot. Got a single pellet to the head from less than 15 yds

I was around 12 and it was short of a miracle.

Anyways. It never went thru the skull.

Before I was married I lived around KC MO. I think it was claycomo this happened but not sure. I had a pistol team and one of the guys was late. He was also a cop. He gets there at the last minute and says hang around till I'm done. I got a story.

Well it seems a few years before a guy broke into an elderly couple home and was caught. He did something else I think threaten them before the cops arrived. They pressed charges. He was screaming he would come back and kill them.

During the years he was doing his time the old man passed away. He gets out.  She got a call the day he did. They watch the house off and on. A few days later he breaks in when no cop car was around. He came to kill them.

Well she was ready. She had loaded up the 30 plus inch side by side 12 gauge that was her late husband only gun. ( he told me there where two loads in a coffee can. Red 00 buck and purple #6 rabbit loads. She picked the purple because she liked the color. )

well she new the house like the back of her hand. Were the hard wood floor creaked and where the didn't. She heard him in the house. He was headed to their bedroom. She had moved to another one after her husband passed. She couldn't stand to be in there without him.

Well the phone was in the kitchen. Between him and her. She figured she would either scare  him off or get him to the kitchen and make the call. She then realized he was not there to scare her.

Well she snuck up behind him. She said she was close then she thought when she could see him. She had the barrels pointed to the back of his head. (From a range of a few feet I think one to the back of the head would have worked quite spectacularly.)

We'll she could bare the thought of shooting him in the head, so she lowered it to his ass and let fly.

My friend said he had heard of  the saying of people getting their ass shot off. He could no say that he had actually seen it


I've wondered  how he explained that in the shower at prison.

If I was going to make a troll thread on ARFCOM, a thread about shotgun shells would be my last choice.

There is no "safe" round when it comes to the possibility of penetrating walls.  If a load - any load (pistol, rifle, shotgun) - can be safely contained by walls, it is incapable of adequately penetrating an adult's body...  and that's unsafe for you.

For a shotgun, I wouldn't go smaller than 4 Buck (I know that at one time the Ohio State Highway Patrol used 4 Buck, but I don't know if they still do).  1 Buck is the hotness among cognoscenti, but there's nothing wrong with plain vanilla 00 Buck.
For an AR, I wouldn't go lighter than 55 gr. and I would stay away from any "varmint" load.
For a pistol, any conventional bullet from 9mm on up will certainly penetrate a handful of walls.

Cabelas and Actually I did use #3 shot steel but yes it penetrates. Id prefer #1 or #2 but its very tough to find. I also did this because it was typically cheaper than buck shot and with the steel it has better shape retention which is beneficial if using a shot based system. Through my tests the smallest shot Id use would be #5 copper plated. and that's a more of a desperate load. I have no issues with buck shot or slugs. ive always wanted to try the mini slugs

ETA: BBB BB T and especially F is really preferred but once again extremely hard to come by and when you do find extremely expensive

Almost any projectile can be lethal and/or penetrate. So what, you avg load of goose shells is 1& 1/4oz shot maybe 1& 3/8oz, so that makes deuces with a 1 1/4oz makes that about 120 pellets. Even pushing Remington hypersonic that go damn fast I don't know if the equation of force = mass * velocity would even compare to the penetration of a 00 buck. Also, why isn't steel shot used for military or police applications? And why do us goose hunters loathe the penetration on a locked up goose? It sucks that you apparently had to shot somebody but the evidence is pretty clear cut that anything less than #4 buck (and even #4 buck is debatable) establishes a bottom threshold for the minimum of a self defense load.

Hard to come by?  Try Walmart.

BB,BBB and T to some extant can be found during hunting season. All can be found year round with acces to the internets

Birdshot. Google and YouTube are your friends.

http://youtu.be/6zhW9E3PDUk
For those talking about bikers in leather.

Not for my AO so yes hard to come by in those configurations

ETA: and the large sized shot is typically a seasonal item comes and goes for those its available for

The one thing that most people don't realize on using many shot is using the right choke. The same people using birdshot is the same people using a cylinder (maybe improved cylinder) as their barrel choice. Then again not many 18-20" barrel systems that's allow different chokes either

When you factor in cost and penetration of medium steel (or any plated shot) is not worth it for Law enforcement or military.

I se low recoil 00 buck in my home shotgun, and we are also issued it at work along with low recoil Win Ranger Slugs. Buckshot, buy some.

Case and point

I don't know, "#8  birdshot is the best home defense load EVER!!" would make it to 10 pages easily in GD

I don't use purple.  Plus speaking from some experience, bones tend to stop things like shot and knife blades.  Hollywood tends to leave that shit out.  I had a much smaller hole in my jeans and much larger in my leg, I still walked.

These days a biker may even have a bullet proof vest and may not even be a biker.  The thing that gets left off is always FT/lbs per shot.  So some #8 shot penetrates gel.  I would not shoot a wolf or bear with bird shot, or even #4 buck.  I own plenty of it, have used it in the field and on our property to solve problems, also tested it in a way that worked for me.  Put half the biker behind a corner, kitchen furniture, even heavy cardboard and use Cyl or IC.  He might even have a winter coat.

Everybody has to game their own set up.  You better be right.  I am of the opinion if you really need to ask what load to use, you might be better off with a rifle.

Buck and Ball.  I can't remember the brand, but each shell has three 00 buckshot and a 1oz slug.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Winchester-reg-PDX-Personal-Defense-Shotshells/1159802.uts

Intruders will use walls and furniture for cover.  Follow FBI barrier test protocol.  Smallest shot that passes is #1B.  I prefer full power Federal Flight Control 9 pellet 00B because it patterns so tight - approx 4"x4" or less at 15 yards from improved cylinder choke, and less than 12"x12" at a full 50 yards.  It is a game changer.